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Dr. Harold Varmus, Medical Science and Global Health as Instruments of International Diplomacy

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Previously, Varmus was the director of the National Cancer Institute for (2010 – 2015), the president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center for a decade and director of the National Institutes of Health (1993 – 1999). He joined the Meyer Cancer Center of Weill Cornell Medicine as the Lewis Thomas University Professor of Medicine in April 2015. He is a member of the U.S. National Academies of Sciences and Medicine, is involved in several initiatives to promote science and health in developing countries and serves on advisory groups for several academic, governmental, philanthropic and commercial institutions. The author of approximately 400 scientific papers and five books, including a recent memoir titled “The Art and Politics of Science,” Varmus was a co-founder and chairman of the board of the Public Library of Science, and chair of the Scientific Board of the Gates Foundation Grand Challenges in Global Health. A graduate of Amherst College and Harvard University in English literature and of Columbia University in medicine, he was further trained at Columbia University Medical Center, the National Institutes of Health, and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), before becoming a member of the UCSF basic science faculty for more than two decades.